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Ah I missed that last post - Durckad are you still running 5e? How do you feel about it now? It's funny I haven't really looked at the new 5e stuff aside from flipping pages at a store. A friend of mine is a Pathfinder super subscriber or whatever you call it so I've been able to better keep up with what's going on there.

 

Yeah, I'm still running my game. The players are all level 4 right now (we only get to play once a month) but I have a feeling they'll hit level 5 after next session as that should hopefully finish up the current storyline they've spent the last 3 or 4 sessions working towards. That'll be a perfect opportunity for a level up.

 

Most of my issues with the game are gone. They seem to evaporate when actual play starts. I miss the plethora of options from 3e and PF, but, if this game ever gets to around 10th or so level, I have a feeling it's going to be much easier to run, both for the players and me. I've run several games up to around level 13-15 to know how often those options are both a huge blessing (in making the game interesting and unpredictable) and a huge curse. I don't think I'll even miss them by then.

 

Overall, I think it's pretty fantastic. It's not the huge clusterfuck of clashing rules that 2e was but it retains a semblance of its freewheeling nature while keeping around many of the positive changes from 3e, PF, and yes even 4e. Obviously, if you're not a fan of D&D or its style of game, then 5e probably won't excite you much, but I get exactly what I want out of it: a game I can play with some friends once every so often and one where most of my prep time isn't devoted to statting up opponents. ;)

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After months of not being able to get together and play, we'll be playing this evening.

We run a 3e campaign set in alternate history Earth. Our DM likes that kind of stuff, being somewhat of a history buff.

At the moment, our story is set in Arthurian England, or whatever it was called back then (as I said, we haven't played for months so my memory is a bit hazy ;) ).

My character is a neutral Christian cleric, accompanied by another Christian cleric, a rogue and a fighter.

Missing a wizard/sorcerer but I guess having two clerics helps mostly make up for it.

Can't wait to roll the dice!

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I'd like to think that this is one of my favorite threads ever.

 

I'm not the DM at the moment - I don't have the time. But I'll run an one shot for "Unknown Armies" in the future which will be about those surprise eggs. :smug: So looking forward to it.

 

I play "[url=http://www.lodland.de]LodlanD"[/url] and "The Dark Eye" at the moment.

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5th is my favorite edition so far. I can't put a quantitative reason behind why it feels like old AD&D without all the rules clunk, but it just does. Its like someone took a time machine and made 3e all over again with the lessons of modern RPG design we have now.

 

That said, we've been playing L5R, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds, and Apocalypse World in addition to the standard d20 stuff for the past few years, and it's all really good stuff.

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They wisely advanced then divorced the RPG from the card game timeline, presenting each clan in its most iconic form and giving some reference stiff for running in the various popular periods. We have a few guys in our group that found the setting too rigid for their style, otherwise I've always loved it. Couldn't tell you what's going on in the living world.

 

On a side note, damn that first Clan War novel was amazing.

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I'm DM'ing for a local The Dark Eye group atm. Loving every minute of my group :)

 

I gathered none of my players has played Shadowrun or CoC so far, so once the current campaign is over, I'll propose a few 'runs or Lovecraftian adventures. Preferably with me not being DM for once :P

 

Hehe.

 

CoC is cool. Especially when set in 1920.

 

And I think the supplement "London - Im Nebel der Themse" is even better than the one for Victorian Age "Vampire".

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  • 1 month later...

Has anyone tried Fate Core or Fate Accelerated? How does it play? Strengths? Weaknesses? It looks interesting but I'm still trying to get a grasp of how play would feel. 

 

I currently play Fate Core. Although we didn't get past the character creation last time. Will keep you posted. And I'm finally able to use my Fudge dice. :smug:

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Has anyone tried Fate Core or Fate Accelerated? How does it play? Strengths? Weaknesses? It looks interesting but I'm still trying to get a grasp of how play would feel. 

I have played it for a while.  If you are in to narrative play it works well.  If you like more crunch it gets hard.  Your players really have to get a hang of the compels for FATE points and compelling NPCs to get the most out of the system.  Our group felt it worked well with kind of a pulp/comic type style of absurdity.  

 

Advancement also is more narrative and less crunch, you should be changing aspects.  We had a table rule that after each Scenario, several sessions, you should be changing an aspect to reflect what your character went through.

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I have played it for a while.  If you are in to narrative play it works well.  If you like more crunch it gets hard.  Your players really have to get a hang of the compels for FATE points and compelling NPCs to get the most out of the system.  Our group felt it worked well with kind of a pulp/comic type style of absurdity.  

 

Advancement also is more narrative and less crunch, you should be changing aspects.  We had a table rule that after each Scenario, several sessions, you should be changing an aspect to reflect what your character went through.

Great to hear. I saw your posts earlier in this thread, but I was not sure whether or not that experience regarding FATE had changed any since then. I have increasingly moved to more narrative play with rules lite-to-medium systems (e.g. Monte Cook Games' Cypher System, Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE, etc.), so FATE seems like a good fit. The aspects, in particular, sound like an incredibly fun and creative method of character creation. I like the idea of character advancement through aspect changing. Is that standard advancement practice? 

 

I am also curious about magic systems in FATE. There is not really a set one from the looks of things. I get that it's supposed to be hackable so you can create and adjust as needed, but it still seems like a lot of additional effort to go in and hacking away blindly. Are there are any magic systems for FATE that work well for you or that you have come across? Thanks. 

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Great to hear. I saw your posts earlier in this thread, but I was not sure whether or not that experience regarding FATE had changed any since then. I have increasingly moved to more narrative play with rules lite-to-medium systems (e.g. Monte Cook Games' Cypher System, Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE, etc.), so FATE seems like a good fit. The aspects, in particular, sound like an incredibly fun and creative method of character creation. I like the idea of character advancement through aspect changing. Is that standard advancement practice? 

 

I am also curious about magic systems in FATE. There is not really a set one from the looks of things. I get that it's supposed to be hackable so you can create and adjust as needed, but it still seems like a lot of additional effort to go in and hacking away blindly. Are there are any magic systems for FATE that work well for you or that you have come across? Thanks. 

The Dresden System was overburdened with Aspects....and the magic system got REALLY mathy, to be honest, and a little too crunchy.  A lot more than at first blush.  They slimmed it down for FATE Core which is better.  I believe the Core Rule Book has some example magic systems.  

 

In reality though, I think if I was doing a magic system, I would have a skill called Lore and maybe have a stunt or some such that lets you make manuevers or use it as an attacking skill.  FATE works better when you keep it simple.  While Spirit of the Century still has old FATE Core Rules, they have some fun stunt ideas to pull from for mystical stuff and science.  If you wanted something crunchier, I would go maybe with the Evocation System from Dresden.  It's more dynamic.  The Thaumaturgy (butchered the word) gets...complicated and kind of kept falling in our way.  It was better when we kind of let the GM narratively set it and pushed it forward.

 

FATE Core also did away with Companion Rules and Minion Rules, which are a shame, because I think those rules made things run a little faster, in someways, and kept the focus on the PC.  Luckily, they are pretty simple to add back into FATE Core.  (Like, if I did a game with magic and someone wanted to Summon devils, I would have them use the Minion Stunt from Spirit of the Century.  If someone wanted something more like a summon pet or a Golem, I would have them snag the Companion Stunt from Spirit of the Century.)

 

(Minions work in groups, when you do damage to them you tick off each stress box and damage carries through the group.  Companions, usually, need to be paired with a PC or they are just a glorified Minion.  They grant PCs bonus to certain kind of skills checks.)

 

Also, Fate Core dumping the Social Skill track was nice.  Social combat is better handled with consequences then with Stress Damage.

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  • 5 months later...

The 7th Sea: Second Edition Kickstarter broke the record for the #1 tabletop Kickstarter of all time ($684,756). It is at ~$730K now, and it still has 17 days to go left. And for $40, you get pdfs for all the 1st edition rules ($350+ retail value), pdfs for the 2nd Edition Core Rulebook and New World book, as well as all the stretch goal pdfs. 

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3 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

The 7th Sea: Second Edition Kickstarter broke the record for the #1 tabletop Kickstarter of all time ($684,756). It is at ~$730K now, and it still has 17 days to go left. And for $40, you get pdfs for all the 1st edition rules ($350+ retail value), pdfs for the 2nd Edition Core Rulebook and New World book, as well as all the stretch goal pdfs. 

That looks kind of interesting.  I might actually sponsor it.  Do you have any thoughts on it?

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5 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

That looks kind of interesting.  I might actually sponsor it.  Do you have any thoughts on it?

I have only played a few sessions of 1st edition with my girlfriend GMing, who has far more experience with this setting/rules. The setting is somewhat shallow, given that it's barely a thinly-veiled real world Europe (and associated archetypes), but that also makes it fairly easy to pick up. More importantly, I enjoyed the flexible character customization. You have 100 points which you use to buy your abilities, skills, and such however you like. In my girlfriend's mini-adventure, her friend created a huge, muscle-bound viking warrior, while I made a weak, non-fighting, but silver-tongued "Dutch" spice merchant/smuggler. It was a combination we recognized in retrospect that was unintentionally akin to Chewbacca and Han Solo. But it was nice being able to make a non-fighting character for once and to deal with those limitations. The rules were fairly intuitive, though we never got into one of the more problematic aspects. One of the criticisms I heard my girlfriend raise was that duels sometimes lasted too long, leaving other players nothing to do in hour-long dice-rolling dueling matches. But apparently, if John Wick is to be believed, 2nd edition will attempt to streamline the action. 

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Referring to the 5E review upthread, I've played that myself and it's not bad, but it's a bit simplistic. All fighters have the same skills, and you can't pick any more unless you expend a feat (assuming you're using that optional rule), which is a pretty steep price. I never found skills to be game-busting so I don't understand why the creators are so stingy with 'em.

Also, that magic system is just not ready for prime time. I understand and approve of the concept behind the concentration rules, but those rules impact clerics far more heavily (and negatively) than they do other classes. Cleric spells are largely buffs, but maintaining concentration means you limited not only in how many you can have active, but in how long they are active. Example: In Round 1 you cast Bless, but then one of your compatriots gets charmed so you have to drop the bless to attend to that. Then another comrade gets held and you have to drop Protection from Evil to see to that. etc.

Also, the combination of concentration rules plus save-every-round (SER) can be devastating. In one campaign, the wizard used Power Word, Stun, which is both concentration and SER, and he got exactly one round of benefit from it. From an eighth-level spell. Since spellcasters get relatively few spells anyway, this is just frustrating.

Again, I like the general direction of concentration rules, and SER helps to resolve the "save or suck" problem of RPGs, but I wonder if there isn't another way.

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12 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

I have only played a few sessions of 1st edition with my girlfriend GMing, who has far more experience with this setting/rules. The setting is somewhat shallow, given that it's barely a thinly-veiled real world Europe (and associated archetypes), but that also makes it fairly easy to pick up. More importantly, I enjoyed the flexible character customization. You have 100 points which you use to buy your abilities, skills, and such however you like. In my girlfriend's mini-adventure, her friend created a huge, muscle-bound viking warrior, while I made a weak, non-fighting, but silver-tongued "Dutch" spice merchant/smuggler. It was a combination we recognized in retrospect that was unintentionally akin to Chewbacca and Han Solo. But it was nice being able to make a non-fighting character for once and to deal with those limitations. The rules were fairly intuitive, though we never got into one of the more problematic aspects. One of the criticisms I heard my girlfriend raise was that duels sometimes lasted too long, leaving other players nothing to do in hour-long dice-rolling dueling matches. But apparently, if John Wick is to be believed, 2nd edition will attempt to streamline the action. 

It looked like a crunchier version of FATE.  I like FATE, but sometimes I want to have that feeling of "leveling up" and my players have voiced something similar.

I had a campaign idea that is more for a swashbuckler type setting that I was trying to crowbar into either Pathfinder or D&D 5th, this might be a good way too go.

Thanks for the reply!

ETA:  Soooo, it looks like you could really do a version of the 13th warrior in this rule set.

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On 2/26/2016 at 7:11 AM, TrackerNeil said:

Referring to the 5E review upthread, I've played that myself and it's not bad, but it's a bit simplistic. All fighters have the same skills, and you can't pick any more unless you expend a feat (assuming you're using that optional rule), which is a pretty steep price. I never found skills to be game-busting so I don't understand why the creators are so stingy with 'em.

Also, that magic system is just not ready for prime time. I understand and approve of the concept behind the concentration rules, but those rules impact clerics far more heavily (and negatively) than they do other classes. Cleric spells are largely buffs, but maintaining concentration means you limited not only in how many you can have active, but in how long they are active. Example: In Round 1 you cast Bless, but then one of your compatriots gets charmed so you have to drop the bless to attend to that. Then another comrade gets held and you have to drop Protection from Evil to see to that. etc.

Also, the combination of concentration rules plus save-every-round (SER) can be devastating. In one campaign, the wizard used Power Word, Stun, which is both concentration and SER, and he got exactly one round of benefit from it. From an eighth-level spell. Since spellcasters get relatively few spells anyway, this is just frustrating.

Again, I like the general direction of concentration rules, and SER helps to resolve the "save or suck" problem of RPGs, but I wonder if there isn't another way.

After running pathfinder and 3.5 for years, I find the more simplistic 5E to be an upgrade. :)

I tend to think the designers went a bit overboard on designating which spells were Concentration spells. I fully support their endeavor to nix the whole Scry -> Buff -> 'Port -> Nuke strategy that many high level games ultimately would boil down to, but I think they overdid it. That said, with the way saving throws function, the way damage is dealt, and how quickly fights tend to be over, one or two rounds of being stunned or paralyzed an be enough to turn the tide.

I think if I had to list out my issues with 5E, they would probably be:

1) Overuse of concentration - Already addressed this above. Good mechanic, just overused.

2) Monsters are too simplistic - Many monsters just seem to be big bags of hit points. This is relatively easy to fix, and I don't necessarily want a return to the page long statblocks from 3.5/Pathfinder, but there's a happy medium in between somewhere.

3) Lack of meaningful character options - With the loss of skill points and feats and multiclassing being an optional rule, character choice ends up being fairly front-loaded. Also, the number of archetypes and backgrounds available is very uh, limited at the moment.

4) Stingy Spells - High-level characters get a ridiculously small number of spells. This is made even worse now that spells no longer automatically scale which means spellcasters need to use up even more slots. I guess the at will cantrips and ritual rules kinda make up for it but it still seems pretty limited.to me.

5) Too few traps - I need more ways to kill my players with environmental obstacles.

My campaign has only hit 5th level so maybe more problems will become apparent later on, but at the moment that's all I have. Interesting to compare this list to my initial list. Also interesting to see that I was hoping my players would hit level 5 back in goddamn July 2015 and they only recently (back in December) finished up that campaign arc! Seriously, this is what happens when your players fuck around all the time. C'mon guys!

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1 hour ago, Durckad said:

3) Lack of meaningful character options - With the loss of skill points and feats and multiclassing being an optional rule, character choice ends up being fairly front-loaded. Also, the number of archetypes and backgrounds available is very uh, limited at the moment.

4) Stingy Spells - High-level characters get a ridiculously small number of spells. This is made even worse now that spells no longer automatically scale which means spellcasters need to use up even more slots. I guess the at will cantrips and ritual rules kinda make up for it but it still seems pretty limited.to me.

Totally agree with these. The multi-class system in 5E kinda bites, and it doesn't really let you diversify your character the way you can in Pathfinder. 

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